15 April 2011

The World's Youngest Urbanist

Ah, out of the mouths of babes. Last Sunday I dropped Felix off at football training and then headed to a hardware store with Lulu-Sophia in the Bullitt. She's three and half. We talked as we rolled along, as we always do.

At a red light she looked over at a motorcyclist with a passenger on the back. She commented on it.

The light changed green and we rolled onwards. What then came out of her little mouth and clever mind amazed me. She must have been looking around at the traffic after making her observations.

"When people are in cars, you can't see them, can you?"

"No, you can't", said Daddy. But you can see people on bicycles, can't you? And people walking and those people on that motorbike."

"Yeah... cars are silly, aren't they, Daddy? You can't see the people in them. That's silly..."

That made my heart sing. The world's youngest Urbanist. Right there on my bike. She's only three and a half so I haven't had chats with her about why bicycles are cool and safe and good or why too much car traffic is a bad thing for cities and safety and the public health - like I have with my 9 year old son. Although the time she has spent in cars in her three and a half years totals no more than five or six hours.

This was pure observation on her part. And a pure, logical, innocent and human conclusion.

When my daughter was a little younger than this, she would become very distressed riding in cars because the people passing on the street would not respond to her greetings. "Mom, why that man no HI me???" "He can't see you, honey - we're in a car!"(hate to admit that I drove her around in a car back in the day - now she gets around sensibly, by bike)

ATX: On the contrary, transparent consumerism is important, and one will also note that very few cargo bikes for personal use have locking lids: Henry Cutler of Workcycles mentions on his website that if someone takes groceries from your cargobike it probably just means they needed them.

But anyway it is quite amusing to see Germans cycling home from the store with huge "jumbo packs" of toilet paper awkwardly fastened to their rear racks or baskets.

I really regret that I was not cycling when my kids were small, so much fun missed out on. Maybe I will get to be a grandad who cycles his grandkids to school. This story reminded me of this video, scream with me - http://vimeo.com/6524248?ab

We do a lot of car sharing (getting larger shoppings home, visiting the grandparents in the countryside...), so for our daughter there were two types of cars:- shared cars ("Teilautos" in German) and- parked cars ("Parkautos").

Cars currently driving really make up a neglectible fraction don't they?

Kilometres cycled by Copenhageners so far today

Copenhagenize.com is the blog of Copenhagenize Design Company. Online since 2007 and highlighting the cycling life in Copenhagen and around the world.

40 years ago Copenhagen was just as car-clogged as anywhere else but now 41% of the population arriving at work or education do so on bicycles, from all over the Metro area. 55% of Copenhageners themselves use bicycles each day. They all use over 1000 km of bicycle lanes in Greater Copenhagen for their journeys. Copenhagenizing is possible anywhere.